Whoo Hoo!

I was very excited this morning to discover that my Wrap-around birthday card placed in the Hero Arts weekly challenge! Yeah!

Here is the link to the Hero Arts Blog post: http://heroarts.com/blogs/club/2008/07/31/winners-of-the-wrap-around-card-challenge/

My daughter loved the card for her birthday! So I was a winner at home too!

Misty background

The weekly challenge at Hero Arts this week is about inspiration and amazing people. My card is dedicated to my older sister!






I used a technique on the background that was so easy and fast and lets me blend colors!

Take a piece of acetate and pull out your watercolor markers. Pick a couple of colors you really want to see blended together.

Hint: If you are like me and like to use colors on opposite sides of the color wheel, you will need to be careful on blending the colors because you will get a muddy color.

1. Color sections of the acetate with the various colors you selected until you have covered an area of the acetate the size of your background.
2. Pull out your handy dandy mister/spray bottle. Give the color on acetate 5 to 6 spritzes. You will see the color start to blend and bleed.
3. Put your white glossy cardstock face down on the colored acetate. You can put another sheet of acetate on the back side to keep any wetness between the two sheets of acetate. Flip over the acetate sandwich and you will see what your cardstock looks like.
4. If you have any air bubbles you will end up with a white spot. So you can move the color and the air bubbles around by pushing the acetate with your fingers. The more you move the color the more the colors become blended.
5. Pull the acetate off and let the cardstock dry. (Be careful here as you will get a bunch of liquid on one side and you will want a paper towel to clean off the excess color/water)
6. Hint: My daughter accidentally didn't push the mister hard enough and she ended up making drips of water on the acetate. This gave the color a really cool effect like water drips of color. You probably will want to try this on at least one of the backgrounds you make. (I know you will be making more than one, I made 5 different color combinations)
7. After the cardstock was dry I used my StazOn Ink Pad and stamped my images across the background.
8. Cut the cardstock to size, punch the corners, mount....
9. I also used an excess piece to stamp my sentiment on and I saved a piece for the inside.

Products:

• Hero Arts H3308 Sandra's Letter Background Stamp
• Hero Arts G4917 Dandelion (Love this stamp!)
• Inkadinkadoo Clear Stamps - Bugs
• Scrappy Cat - Inspirations Clear Stamps
• Zig Colorbrush Markers - Hydrangea and Greek Isle (Who wouldn't want to use those colors just for the names alone!)
• Hero Arts Black Gemstones
• Fiskars 3 in 1 Corner Punch - Heritage
• Black & Teal Cardstock
• StazOn Royal Purple

Wedding Card

This is a card I created because I wanted to try out a new stamp I purchased from Hero Arts and one of my CB embossing folders.

Products:

Hero Arts - Always & Forever

Crochet Flowers - Unknown

Pearl Gems

Ribbon - Michael's

Embossing Folder - Cuttlebug

TFL!

Wrap-Around Card

My youngest one is turning 7 on Monday and I have this set of animals from Hero Arts that I have been trying to incorporate into a card and wanted to take a second pass on the wrap-around challenge.

I decided to create a Knock Knock joke card for my wrap-around... and give it to my youngest! Happy Birthday Tanya!



Front of the card... The hippo is talking to the owl.


inside of the card... read left side first... and then the right...

and on the back side of the card...

Products:

• Hero Arts Design Block Tree
• Adirondacks - Pool, Citrus
• Memories Dye Ink Pad - Chestnut
• Cuttlebug Embossing folder Mosaic
• Hero Arts Clear Design Playful Animals
• General Kimberly Watercolor Pencils
• Waterbrush
• Stickers for the letters (Don't know who the manufacturer is they were leftover from a calendar project)

I didn't include a step by step as there wasn't much of any technique here except water coloring all those animals. :) Also I masked the tree with a circle cut using the fiskars templates and circle cutter.

I hope to post something later as I just recieved some new supplies which I will play with.

Leftovers....

Leftovers in card making is usually better than leftovers in the fridge! I like keeping leftovers and use it as a challenge every so often to use up what was leftover from a previous card. These are my leftovers from my card earlier today.

Enjoy my leftovers. :)

Faith

This is gorgeous paper from foof-a-La Autumn Leaves. The card came from the paper. :) I looked for a stamp to emulate the flowers on the paper. When I was finished I thought of creating a sympathy card based on the colors. Unfortunately over the past year I have had quite of few of these I had to make. I am happy to say I have no need for this card right now.





To make the flowers portion of the card:

1. Ink the rubber stamp with Versamark Watermark Ink Pad
2. Color on the stamp on top of the versamark ink with Pink Marvy Uchida Marker using the brush end of the pen.
3. Edge the stamp with Pesto Ink Pad
4. Randomly color around the edges of the stamp with Brown Tombo Marker
5. Stamp on the cream colored paper.
6. Heat emboss with clear embossing powder.
7. Using a foam pad ink it with the Pesto and smear around the edges of the square.

Products:

• Adirondack Earthtones - Pesto
• Versamark Watermark Pad
• foof-a-La Autumn Leaves Paper
• Scrappy Cat - Clear Stamps - SCR507 Inspirations (Faith)
• A Stamp in The Hand Co - Q-1802 Tall Poppies

Snowy Day

I love the Hero Arts DesignBlock Tree stamp. I think it is a beautiful stamp. I wanted to use it with some of the techniques I had used on my earlier card with an overall glaze.

This is what I ended up with:

I was really pleased with how this picture turned out. I was trying to capture the glitter and I think it actually photagraphed better than the card looks in person. Hee Hee... Maybe this should be sent in an email instead of snail mail.

Here are the steps to create:
1. Begin with a piece of glossy cardstock.

2. Stamp the tree using Versamark Watermark Stamp Pad.

3. Emboss the tree using JudiKins Metallic Copper Embossing Powder.

4. Paint on twinkling H2O's with a water brush. Colors used were Periwinkle, Blue Ice, Passion. Use a lot of water and swirl around. Dab off excess and smear with paper towel.

5. Stamp over the entire picture with Versamark Watermark Stamp Pad.

6. Heat emboss with clear embossing powder.

7. While the embossing powder is still hot add another layer of clear embossing powder and heat.

8. While the embossing powder is still hot sprinkle fine glitter (light blue) on the wet embossing powder. (This will get very messy as not all the glitter will stick and the hot air from the heat gun will blow the glitter all over.) I am covered in a fine blue sparkle as I type. :)

9. Finish off the layers with one more layer of clear embossing powder while the picture is still hot.

Other Products:

Penny Black - Celebrate the Wonder

Ribbon - Sweet Treat Ribbon, Michael's

Fiskars 3 - in -1 Corner stamp - Heritage

TFL!

It's Been Awhile

I was pretty busy over the weekend. I was fortunate enough to be at CHA! It was tremendous fun! I was able to see all the new releases, participate in some make and takes and visit with some old and new friends. Alas... There was no creating of my own cards over the weekend.


I have worked on 3 cards since Monday... I am going to share 2 of them. One of them is for the Hero Arts Blog Challenge: http://heroarts.com/blogs/club/2008/07/21/motivation-monday-wrap-around-card-a-sneak-peek/. The challenge is to create a wrap-around card.


I wanted to use my new Hero Arts Clear Design set with my 12" HA clear stamp. Unfortunately I don't have a 12" acrylic block... So I used my plastic ruler. It worked great! It cleans up just as nicely as my blocks. (Keep it in mind if you are like me and haven't invested in a long block)



Here is the inside and outside of what I created...



I used the Hero Arts Clear Design Set with the 12" clear stamp. (The flowers that scroll across the front and back.) I think these clear stamps are very nice for scrapbook layouts and borders on cards.

Products Used:
Hero Arts - Clear Design - Flower Blossoms
Prisma - WaterColor Pencils
Hero Arts - Gems
Crystal Stickers - Gems
Tsukineko - Memento - Lilac Posies
Tsukineko - Memento - New Sprout
Hero Arts - Birthday Greetings Set

Summertime...

Summertime to me is about the flowers and the sun. In the Midwest the summers can get a bit muggy.. So I think of summer in reds, oranges and yellows. The Hero Arts Challenge on their blog this week is Summer. This card was inspired by the flowers and colors of summer.






The front of the card ties because....



The inside had matching flowers that were also popped up with foam circles. I could have scored once more to provide a little matchbook type of fold.

TFL!

Scrapbooking

I have never tried scrapbooking. The closest I have gotten is designing a calendar page for a calendar exchange. On 2 Peas in a Bucket they posted this challenge: http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/userblogpost.asp?id=38951 A Tag layout... He He He.. Much more my size of creating. Here is what I submitted:





My DD decided to play baseball this year again and my DS and DH have been playing and coaching for awhile. I have this great stamp for baseball that I love and I used it to create the background.

I think I will stick with the cardmaking. :)

Summer Challenge

The Hero Arts weekly blog challenge is to create a card/layout for summer.

The inspiration for this card was other cards where the design included stems of flowers from words. This card uses the words to make the petals of the flowers and leaves. I added a little more funkiness by curving the polka-dot stamp for the stems. I will post up my second version of the same card later.



Products Used:

Hero Arts Sparkle Clear - Happy Greetings
Hero Arts Sparkle Clear - Full of Sunshine
Hero Arts Clear Designs - Happiness Messages
Memory Makers Circles
Gem Brad - Unkown
Yellow Ribbon - Unknown
Marvy Uchida Scallop Punch

Sunday Party Time...

Today we have a family party... We are celebrating my youngest's birthday (7), my nephew who is 17 and my other nephew visiting from Texas (10). My niece who is 19 also has a July birthday but it was decided she is too old to be having a birthday party.

I had made a few cards for the celebration which I have shared here... I think 10 & 17 year old boys are a little more difficult to create cards for...

My nephew who is 17... I took an easy route as his birthday is on the 5th of July...

My other newphew who is 10 likes dogs...

And my neice I used a card I had made for an inchie challenge:

Well... I better be off to work on preparing for the family! Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Next Up...

The flowers were created using the following steps:

1. I stamped the flowers using an Adirondack Meadow Dye Ink Pad from Ranger.
2. I used my waterbrush and my Zig markers to mix the colors and colored the flowers with a hint of color using the red, yellow and orange.
3. I also stroked some red and yellow and orange from the waterbrush on the background and spritzed it with a water mister and took up the excess water and color with a dry piece of paper towel. I let this dry. (Meaning I walked away and thought about what I wanted to do next. :)
4. I pulled out my glaze pens and outlined the flowers and stems using orange, red and yellow. While this was drying...
5. I stippled with a dry brush using the Meadow Adirondack Dye Ink all around the edges of the paper lightening the color towards the flowers.
6. After all that was done.... I took out my versamark watermark stamp and stamped over the whole square added the clear embossing powder and heated it up. While it was still warm I added another layer of the clear embossing powder and melted that as well.

Whew! What a long explanation... But it was a discovery process for me and I wanted to see what effects I would get with mixing different techniques. I think the picture doesn't reflect how beautiful the glaze look is because it is uneven and gives it a nice texture. The glaze outline also provides a beautiful texture.

Products:

• Ranger Adirondack Dye Ink Pad - Meadow
• Penny Black - constellations 3567K
• A Muse Stamps - 8-8391D A true friend
• Ranger Clear Embossing Powder
• VersMark Watermark Stamp Pad
• Glaze Pens - Sakura
• Basic Grey - Mellow Birch
• Velvet Ribbon - Unknown

Here We Go!!!

The inspiration and challenge for this card was to incorporate the Basic Grey paper and my new stamp from Stampington. I also liked the idea of using a non-traditional color combination for a christmas card.

Basic Grey - Mellow Birch

Stampington - K5544 Fun With Santa

Bag O Buttons - Autumn Leaves